The Vatican stated on Tuesday that Pope Francis “extends his apologies” after studies that he had used an offensive slang phrase referring to homosexual males at what was meant to be a personal assembly with 250 Italian bishops final week.
Francis had been taking questions from Italian bishops on a variety of points when the query of whether or not or to not admit overtly homosexual males into seminaries, or priesthood faculties, got here up.
“Pope Francis is conscious of articles that just lately got here out a few dialog, behind closed doorways,” stated Matteo Bruni, the press workplace director for the Holy See, in response to questions from reporters. “The pope by no means meant to offend or specific himself in homophobic phrases, and he extends his apologies to those that have been offended by means of a time period, reported by others.”
Francis has been broadly credited with urging the church to take a extra welcoming method to the L.G.B.T.Q. neighborhood, and he has delivered a largely inclusive message.
At first of his papacy, he stated, “If an individual is homosexual and seeks God and has good will, who am I to evaluate?” He additionally met typically with gay-rights activists, and decided final yr permitting clergymen to bless same-sex {couples},
The opening to the L.G.B.T.Q. neighborhood has been met with a backlash. The choice to bless same-sex unions, for instance, was broadly criticized by bishops in conservative corners of the church, equivalent to Africa, as they imagine the follow contradicts church doctrine.
The Vatican scrambled to clarify that blessings aren’t formal rites, and don’t undercut church instructing towards same-sex marriage.
On the similar time, the church has remained agency in its choice to not permit overtly homosexual males to develop into clergymen.
A doc issued in 2005 beneath Pope Benedict XVI, Francis’s predecessor, excluded from the priesthood most homosexual males, with few exceptions, banning in robust and particular language candidates “who’re actively gay, have deep-seated gay tendencies, or help the so-called ‘homosexual tradition.’”
The doc allowed ordination just for candidates who skilled “transitory” gay tendencies that have been “clearly overcome” not less than three years earlier than ordination as a deacon, the final step earlier than priesthood.
